RECORDINGS VIEW

RECORDINGS VIEW; The Kevin Costner Of Country Music

By DAVID BROWNE;

Published: October 6, 1991

Garth Brooks counts Dan Fogelberg and James Taylor among his heroes, and in concert he often performs "Please Come to Boston," a wimpy 70's hit. These are not the normal earmarks of a country singer -- one who supposedly lives and breathes Hank Williams -- but then, Mr. Brooks isn't truly a country singer. Sure, he wears a cowboy hat on the cover of his third album, "Ropin' the Wind" (Capitol 7 96330 2; CD and cassette), and the songs mention mom, the rodeo and truckers. But deep down, Mr. Brooks is an old-fashioned and sensitive singer-songwriter, and his success says more about the state of country music than it does about Mr. Brooks.

That success is formidable. In September, Capitol shipped 2.6 million copies of his new album, "Ropin' the Wind." It entered the pop charts at No. 1, making it the first country album ever to do so (and the first to scale that pinnacle in 11 years), although it slipped to third place last week behind Guns 'n' Roses' two new records. Part of the reason for Mr. Brooks's success is marketing: with his meat-and-potatoes image, goony grin and virtuous all-American values, he is the Kevin Costner of country.

Then there's his audience. For aging baby boomers who feel disconnected from current pop, country radio has become a sanctuary, a place where familiar old genres are reborn -- feisty Southern rock from the likes of the Kentucky Headhunters and pop courtesy of singer-songwriters like Mr. Brooks.

On his first two albums, "Garth Brooks" and "No Fences," Mr. Brooks often sounded like a folkie, yet the songs and arrangements were rooted in the so-called new traditionalism, the neuvo-honky-tonk movement led by George Strait and Randy Travis. Mr. Brooks's music was more simplistic than his peers'. Yet neither Mr. Travis nor Mr. Strait has come close in recent years to the bawdy energy of Mr. Brooks's hit "Friends in Low Places." With its rowdy, easily mastered chorus and Mr. Brooks's mischievous growl, the song deservedly became a bar-room perennial. And its message -- pro-white trash, anti-upper class and proud of it -- epitomizes much of what is wonderful about country music.

Apparently, shaking the saloon rafters is no longer on Mr. Brooks's agenda. On "Ropin' the Wind," there's nothing as spunky as "Friends in Low Places" or as stubbornly melancholic as "Much Too Young (to Feel This Damn Old)" from his first album. The songs (most of them co-written by the singer) are the weakest batch he's ever recorded. They offer up Hallmark-card imagery ("You know a dream is like a river/ Ever changin' as it flows"), blatant self-aggrandizement ("Against the Grain," an empty-headed boast on which the superficially rebellious Mr. Brooks equates himself with Columbus and Noah) and a stilted attempt at Americana (the soppy mini-western "In Lonesome Dove").

Like any good country album, the songs are littered with wry wordplay ("I wish I could hold her/ Instead of huggin' this old cold shoulder," sings the weary trucker of "Cold Shoulder"). And "We Bury the Hatchet," a playful ode to marital strife, is light, unprepossessing western swing. But even in those moments, Mr. Brooks phrases like a coffeehouse folkie, and the tinkling guitars and pianos that accompany him are unrelentingly tasteful and pristine. Dan Fogelberg would be proud.

What may be most disturbing about Mr. Brooks's music, though, is its hollowness. Country is rooted in many of the values espoused on the album -- sentiment, nostalgia, spiritual redemption. Yet the best country singers deliver these sentiments as if their last drink depended on it. With his bland croon, Mr. Brooks doesn't bleed for his music; he barely gets a paper cut. His music is merely facile, rarely hinting at the deep-seated fears, despair and occasional jubilation that underlie the greatest country songs.

For all its Nashville trappings, "Ropin' the Wind" ultimately leaves you with the sense that Mr. Brooks would rather shop at a cowboy boutique than drop by the bar next door.